RIM buying QNX to drive Blackberry car integration

Blackberry maker RIM is acquiring QNX, the company behind a real-time …

Blackberry maker RIM has made a deal to acquire QNX, the company behind the Neutrino real-time operating system (RTOS). The acquisition, which is expected to complete next month, will give RIM a foothold in car computing and open up opportunities for smart appliance integration.

Neutrino is an exceptionally well-engineered operating system built with a modular microkernal, a sophisticated IPC system, and a lightweight user interface layer. It offers some unusual features, such as support for network-transparent distributed processing. It is principally designed for use in embedded devices, but it can also be installed and run like a conventional desktop operating system (I actually used it as my day-to-day operating system for about six months way back in the day). Neutrino is not technically open source software, but QNX makes the source code available for non-commercial uses.

Real-time operating systems are a pretty specialized niche, but there are some places where the technology has a strong presence. The market segment where Neutrino is most relevant is automotive computing systems. QNX's software is used by a number of car manufacturers to power Bluetooth integration, device connectivity, and number of other related systems. The company is developing a more sophisticated platform in anticipation of 4G connectivity arriving in vehicles. It's intriguing stuff, but the market is going to be fiercely competitive. Intel, for example, is developing its own car computing stack based around Atom and the Linux-based MeeGo platform.

RIM's acquisition of QNX could open the door for tighter integration between Blackberry devices and car computers, a capability that could be important as cars begin to drive into the cloud. RIM has also hinted that QNX's technology could be used to power a new class of Blackberry peripherals, but the company has not offered any specific details about what kind of peripherals it has in mind.

31 Reader Comments

Make sure the OS for the car brakes is not connected to the OS responsible for the cars entertainment system and bluetooth stack. I don't mind if the radio stops working but when the brakes stop working we have a problem. I don't want the any phone connected to core safety electronic systems. Air gap the two parts.

If an OS controlled the brakes, I'd trust QNX over anything in-house Toyota made these days.

QNX has rolled out some innovative stuff. Aren't they the ones that made like an instant-on OS by essentially bypassing the BIOS (? ... EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTUweJKAUfk this is what I was thinking of...I think Ars reported on this a long time ago) They also did the OS for the failed iOpener. The OS was pretty slick for only having like 16mb of flash to sit on, but the iOpener's loss-leading market model of a $100 comp that folks could easily hack just sucked eggs.

Sure hope RIM lets QNX keep doing what they do best. (QNX is the kind of company where you give them an objective, then stand back and let them surprise the hell out of you.)

Not sure why RIM wants to distract themselves with this acquisition right now. They should be laser-focused on shipping their WebKit browser and fixing their toolkit so developers actually want to code compelling apps for their platform. Their whole platform has been treading water for years, with the exception of the Storm touch screen phones that were a failure and waste of company resources.

Cars are a stagnant market in the developed world and nobody is going to pick BlackBerry merely because it has superior integration with their automobile. People are driving less and spending more time outside their cars, in the USA anyway. Baffled.

I'm not sure that the interpretation of this move is correct. RIM is buying the QNX division, which makes this great RT OS. The _current_ owners primarily use this RT OS in automotive integrations. Presumably RIM will continue to target that market, i.e. not screw over existing customers/applications, however, who knows where the OS and bits of the OS might end up being put or used. Maybe they're looking to replace their own OS kernel, or other low or high-level services. (which might not be the kind of thing you advertise during an acquisition) Or maybe they're looking to branch out of the Smartphone business altogether.

This does seem a little odd. QNX is used for serious life critical systems it seems like its use for a smart phones might be a little overkill. Now if you wanted to develop a (semi) autonomous car QNX would be a good choice for the underlying OS of the control computers.

QNX is widely used in a huge range of applications, automotive computers just being one of them.It's a hard realtime, unix-like, incredibly well optimised software stack for running on devices with limited resources. Kind of like on, well I dunno, a phone?

I'm guessing RIM have seen what Apple are doing with OS X and are planning a similar strategy.

Moving BB phones over to running QNX instead of their own custom software stack will allow for a lot more flexibility in the future, and allow for easier porting of features from one phone to another, keeping the user experience consistent across a wide range of hardware types.

Oh man, that guy... I just have to say, anyone who won't put their car in neutral when directed to do so by a 911 operator because they're afraid "they might lose control of the car" should lose their driving license on the spot.

We've heard this story before. Company that used to be the big player in handhelds is now way behind in OS development, watching upstarts with nicer hardware and UI eat their marketshare, and flailing around trying to find the next big thing... so they buy an OS that's totally irrelevant to the handheld business. How did that work out for Palm and BeOS again?

We've heard this story before. Company that used to be the big player in handhelds is now way behind in OS development, watching upstarts with nicer hardware and UI eat their marketshare, and flailing around trying to find the next big thing... so they buy an OS that's totally irrelevant to the handheld business. How did that work out for Palm and BeOS again?

Anyone remember... going way back now... when QNX was touted as the new basis for a revived Amiga OS? Back in 1997/8, after Gateway bought the Amiga tech and trademarks and hooked up with QNX to develop a new OS on their Neutrino windowing system. I remember downloading QNX and Neutrino to play with it (as it was a freely available dev environment for QNX software).

Anyway... it didn't work out, obviously. However, I'm very interested if RIM suddenly decides that it wants a desktop environment of its very own

...oh, and one of the high-profile uses of QNX? As control software for the space-shuttle manipulator arms...

good lord. Service brakes will never be anything but mechanical/hydraulic systems. Even on hybrids the pedal is still mechanically linked to the master cylinder.

Get used to having computers in the loop. Fully Brake-by-Wire systems are actually in a couple current production models(*), and are planned for many more in the near future. Throttle-by-Wire is now quite common. Stability control systems will be mandatory in the US for 2012.

I certainly agree that the highest levels of hardware and software partitioning are appropriate for critical tasks such as vehicle control.

I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt that RIM is planning to replace their smartphone OS with QNX. There's basically nothing wrong with RIM's operating system. Their bootloader is bulletproof. Their kernel is iron-clad. Their security is unparalleled. The problems with RIM's software stack are way up in the application toolkit, not down below in the engine room.

good lord. Service brakes will never be anything but mechanical/hydraulic systems. Even on hybrids the pedal is still mechanically linked to the master cylinder.

Get used to having computers in the loop. Fully Brake-by-Wire systems are actually in a couple current production models(*), and are planned for many more in the near future. Throttle-by-Wire is now quite common. Stability control systems will be mandatory in the US for 2012.

I certainly agree that the highest levels of hardware and software partitioning are appropriate for critical tasks such as vehicle control.

The best maintenance practices for cars are well below the worst maintenance practice of commercial airlines. Same story for components.

Drive-by-wire and brake-by-wire is definitely doable, and may even be more reliable than mechanical linkage in real world use for all I know. But mechanical brake failures will get nowhere near the press of brake-by-wire failures simply for the novelty of the situation.

ABS systems are electronically controlled I want them totally separate from the entertainment system.

welp, that's too bad 'cos that isn't the case even on existing cars. further, even if the ABS control module screws up, the brakes still work.

Quote:

Also fuel injection and throttle control are electronically controlled on new cars.

So? Electronic fuel injection has been around for 30 years, throttle by wire for at least 15. Somehow, we've managed to not have cars go careening out of control just because the radio also happens to sit on the vehicle bus.

Hinton wrote:

Prius owners has claimed otherwise.

Are you claiming they were just trying to make a quick buck?

The Prius still has hydraulic service brakes. I don't know what your winking smiley was supposed to suggest or what point you thought you were making.

mbmcavoy wrote:

Get used to having computers in the loop. Fully Brake-by-Wire systems are actually in a couple current production models(*), and are planned for many more in the near future. Throttle-by-Wire is now quite common. Stability control systems will be mandatory in the US for 2012.

following those links, it says Mercedes recalled about 2 million vehicles with that brake system and is discontinuing it. Not a ringing endorsement.

This makes absolutely no sense. It's almost like they saw Apple buy some companies that deal with embedded processors and they felt they needed to do something similar. RIM is going to have no idea what to do with QNX on a phone, the other portion of QNX's business will start failing, a couple engineers and upper-mgmt, will form a new company doing similar work as QNX's old business and will do much better. RIM will be bought up by nokia.

QNX is used in some pretty important things, cars are only a lucrative side project for them, but even NASA uses it to dock with the ISS (I still remember how hard it was to dock in Elite without the docking computer, so doing it IRL is pretty hardcore stuff imo).

I think RIM have a long term view here. QNX may be seriously overpowered for a mobile phone, but then again iPhoneOS is Mac OSX which in turn is based on BSD Unix, and Android is a Linux distro. Both are monolithic kernels, and QNX maintains an equal portability of software with a realtime microkernel underpinning it, making it naturally more at home in the mobile space. A mobile needs to be efficient in just about every way, and QNX is significantly more efficient by it's simpler design which has oh so many knock on effects on power consumption, responsiveness, lower BoM's (QNX is so tiny it'd only need a fraction of the ROM sizes required in a typical mobile) and stuff like that. If mobile OS's were cars, then QNX would be a Lotus compared to Android being a Mercedes - the Merc could never keep up with a Lotus on a twisty mountain road.

I remember a marketing trick QNX did a while ago creating a 1.44MB floppy image containing the OS, all the necessary device drivers, their Photon GUI and their web browser. Name any other OS that can combine all of that to run off a single floppy disk?

If RIM wanted a new OS now, they'd have bought Palm since it's in trouble and WebOS is up for grabs. But with QNX they've chosen a somewhat harder, but more long term view to secure success, especially since the smartphone space is entirely dominated by the quality of the OS.

Nevertheless QNX offers so much potential for them, that if they don't make the right decisions and are too awe-inspired by the possibilities QNX can offer, then they might have the problem BMW did with their iDrive system - by making overcomplicated and while powerful, due it to it being unusable by the Paris Hiltons of this world, useless.

I for one will be keenly watching this space. With QNX, the only limit is RIM's imagination and developer prowess.

This makes absolutely no sense. It's almost like they saw Apple buy some companies that deal with embedded processors and they felt they needed to do something similar. RIM is going to have no idea what to do with QNX on a phone, the other portion of QNX's business will start failing, a couple engineers and upper-mgmt, will form a new company doing similar work as QNX's old business and will do much better. RIM will be bought up by nokia.

Either that or it makes perfect sense if you abandon the Ars-specific speculation that QNX is going to end up on RIM's phones. I've got a Harman-Becker QNX-based in-dash "entertainment" radio. It's pretty good. It has integrated bluetooth, but all it does is integrate voice calls.

Now imagine a world where it integrates more. Like e-mails. Say the radio did text to speech and did it well. Whenever a Blackberry is in my car, the dash-mounted radio becomes an extension for the phone. It doesn't have to be unsafe. Maybe only allow a few canned responses and no message composition, but with text-to-speech, it could actually be safer than what so many users do right now.

Some acquisitions work better than others. Try these substitutions:handhelds => personal computersPalm => AppleBeOS => NextSTEPYeah, that one went ok.

Which visionary RIM co-founder left to start QNX?

Buying Next solved problems Apple actually had. They desperately needed a modern OS with real multitasking and protected memory, and they needed a true believer CEO to turn things around. Buying Next (NeXT? NexT? I can never remember) got them both a real OS and Steve Jobs.

Blackberry doesn't need a hard realtime kernel. It doesn't need to be certified stable enough to run nuclear submarines. It needs better UI and it really needs better marketing.

The biggest reason for RIM buying QNX is that QNX has some very cool technology and probably patents, along with some very knowledgeable people. As the processors powering mobile devices get more powerful real multitasking will become more prevalent and QNX knows a lot about these in the embedded arena.

Back in the mid 90's I tried to get my employer to switch over to QNX for the embedded control I used to work on. They didn't want to spend the money to do the port at the time. QNX was way cool back then and has only gotten better since.